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Greetings from the Mighty 8th Air Force:

Written by Jonathan Abbott

On Monday, August 17th 1942, twelve American bombers took off for Rouen, France. They were the main force of eighteen bombers sent under Royal Air Force fighter escort. Their target was a marshaling yard. They returned to base at exactly seven in the evening. Not a plane was lost, and the only significant damage to them was inflicted by a pigeon colliding with the nose of one ship.

Insignia of the 8th Air Force

B-17 Flying Fortresses of the 8th Air Force heading to a target

That Monday was a great celebration for the Americans. It was the first US heavy bomber raid for a unit called the 8th Bomber Command. It proved, at least in the minds of the Americans, that heavy bomber raids could be successfully carried out in daytime with minimal casualties. August 17th was the first sputtering of a machine that would later become the US 8th Air Force. By the war’s end, the 8th would be the largest air force of its type in the world, able to send 2,000 bombers and 1,000 fighters on a single mission. Of the 1.5 million Americans to pass through Britain during World War Two, 350,000 of them belonged to the 8th Air Force. Their mission was to take out the German military, not in the field, but at home, depriving it of the ability and desire to make war. Their battleground would be the skies of Europe, and their front line, the green fields of East Anglia.

Embroidered souvenir of the 8th Air Force

England would leave an indelible mark on the lives of the Americans who served there. They in turn would leave their mark on England. Their legacy would be left on the men and women who met them, the children who grew up with them, and in the towns and fields of East Anglia, where the young Americans lived, played and died.

Somewhere in London, someone bought a handkerchief and sent it home to loved ones, where it was kept as a reminder of England and the largest single air force in the world, the Mighty 8th.